What Are Little Boys Made Of?

In this original BTB Investigation, we unveil the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, a four-year-old boy who was treated for “cross-gender disturbance” in 1970 by a young grad student by the name of George Rekers. This story is a stark reminder that there are severe and damaging consequences when therapists try to ensure that boys will be boys.

Slouching Towards Kampala: Uganda’s Deadly Embrace of Hate

When we first reported on three American anti-gay activists traveling to Kampala for a three-day conference, we had no idea that it would be the first report of a long string of events leading to a proposal to institute the death penalty for LGBT people. But that is exactly what happened. In this report, we review our collection of more than 500 posts to tell the story of one nation’s embrace of hatred toward gay people. This report will be updated continuously as events continue to unfold. Check here for the latest updates.

David Benkof: Behind the Mask

At first glance, David Benkof appears to be a young gay man who believes that same-sex marriage will damage the institution of marriage, that there are better options for gay couples than marriage, that the community should join him in prioritizing other more pressing issues, and that the marriage discussion is harming the efforts of gay couples in red states to get recognition for their unions. He also claims that he’s a gay columnist, that he speaks for an influential collection of gay thinkers, and that he is part of the gay and lesbian community and that he shares our goals and dreams. But none of that is true.

“Repeat After Me”: The Reparative Therapy Echo Chamber

The April 2008 edition of the pay-to-publish vanity journal Psychological Reports featured a new report from NARTH. Written by NARTH president A. Dean Byrd, past president Joseph Nicolosi, and Richard W. Potts, the report carries the unwieldy but self-descriptive title, “Clients perceptions of how reorientation therapy and self-help can promote changes in sexual orientation.” While the title describes what the authors meant to show — how clients describe the benefits of reparative therapy — the report itself actually illustrates something very different: the ex-gay movement’s remarkable ability to instill an almost robot-like parroting of ex-gay rhetoric among their clients.

Testing the Premise: Is MRSA The New Gay Plague?

The Toronto Star said that a new study “discover[ed] a new strain” of a super-bug “hitting gay men.” Headlines in Britain screamed, “Flesh-eating bug strikes San Francisco’s gay community,” and anti-gay extremists across America spread the alarm that gays were introducing another plague into “the general population.” But there was a small problem with all of this: None of it is true!

Paul Cameron’s World

In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.” What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany. He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects. This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light.

From the Inside: Focus on the Family’s “Love Won Out”

On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us.

The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing The Myths

At last, the truth can now be told.

Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality. Download your copy today!

Testing The Premise: Are Gays A Threat To Our Children?

Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children. In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings. This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children.

Straight From The Source: What the “Dutch Study” Really Says About Gay Couples

Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.

The FRC’s Briefs Are Showing

Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.

Review: The Gay Report

When Karla Jay and Allan Young published The Gay Report in 1979, it quickly a favorite source of statistics for many anti-gay extremists. But before you accepts these statistic at face value, you should examine the inner workings of this survey very carefully. What you learn might surprise you.

Daniel Fetty Doesn’t Count

The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.

GayTM On the Fritz: Gay Political Donations Down

The opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of other authors at Box Turtle Bulletin.

Jim Burroway

September 24th, 2010

Perhaps one measure of the gay community’s scorn for the Democratic Party’s failure to deliver on its promises — as evidenced by this week’s cynical tossing of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” football coupled with the administration’s ridiculous filing in the Log Cabin Republican lawsuit against DADT — the OpenSecretsBlog reports that LGBT groups’ contributions to political campaigns are drastically down when compared the the last mid-term elections in 2006:

[I]n an election cycle full of controversy over hot button issues such as adoption, “don’t ask, don’t tell” and California’s Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage, donations to federal candidates from gay and lesbian interest groups are lagging. So far during the 2010 election cycle, people and political action committees associated with this special interest area have donated $744,040 to federal candidates, with 96 percent of funds going to Democrats. That’s compared to more than $2 million contributed to federal candidates during the 2006 congressional elections and $1.8 million contributed during the 2008 presidential election cycle.

The Human Rights Campaign has donated a huge majority of the industry’s funds going to federal candidates this cycle, contributing $625,272 to primarily Democratic candidates.

That means that the HRC has contributed almost 85% of all the LGBT dollars to federal campaigns. I don’t know what percentage of the total contribution the HRC contributed in 2006, but I doubt that it amounted to $1.6 million. There has long been a perception that the Democratic party has been eager to take the gay dollar but unwilling to seriously address the gay community’s concerns, whether they be the ongoing firing of qualified personnel from the U.S. military, discrimination against gay and (especially) transgender people in the workplace, or the unwillingness to take a coherent stand on marriage. LGBT people and organizations are, as a result, naturally and justifiably outraged this year, with many demanding that the “GayTM” be shut down.

While undoubtedly the economy has contributed to this falloff in donations, but that’s not the entire story. LGBT donations are down by about half; other sources for donations are off, they haven’t fallen as drastically as this. I’m glad that most of the major LGBT organizations have decided to close the GayTM. Their money wasn’t being well spent, given the pathetic and cynical behavior of the political establishment that so many of us have worked so long and hard to support. For any organization that as to evaluate how effective every dollar they spend is toward accomplishing their goals, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that their dollars can be better spent elsewhere.

I fully support the call to sit on your dollars during this election cycle. If you have money to donate, there are many more worthy causes in your own local community that could use your help in this down economy. At least there, your hard-earned dollars have a better chance of actually doing some good. And if you are interested in contributing to political candidates, there is still the option of donating directly to specific candidates that you know have stood by the LGBT community. (For me locally, for example, I would single out my Congressman, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ). He was among the extremely few Arizona officeholders who actively and publicly campaigned against Prop 102, the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, which passed in 2008.)

I also think this report documents how unbelievably out of touch the HRC is with the community it claims to represent. It looks like we don’t just need an overhaul of the political establishment that takes our money without delivering results, but also the advocacy group that takes our dollars and doesn’t hold anyone accountable. To those of us who have donated to the HRC in the past, it’s a good time to ask: have you gotten your money’s worth?

Comments

Ryan

Rather than just refusing to donate to the HRC or the Democratic Party as a whole (which I completely agree with) I think people should familiarize themselves with which Democrats actually a pro-gay in more than just lip-service and donate to them directly.

Dave

Stephen

Dispiriting for those of us who reckon ourselves to be Democrats to see that the most significant progress has come when Republicans get involved; I’m thinking of the Prop 8 challenge and the DADT challenge. Not that there’s anything wrong with Republican support – good to see them getting involved – but where have the Democrats been all this time? I can understand if they can’t get things done but at least they could try.

It’s been a real grief to see that not only does this president not ‘pander’ to his base, he goes out of his way to show how little we mean to him. It began with Rick Warren and has gone steadily downhill.

Matt

I definitely it would be in the best interests of gay people to stop giving to the Democratic Party as a whole and start giving to specific candidates (Democratic or Republican) who actually walk the walk.

There are a lot of state senators and state representatives who have taken courageous stands and voted for gay marriage in VT, NH, ME, NY, and NJ. Kirsten Gillibrand has actually earned gay support, too, although I think she’s already sitting on a pile of money.

If you are going to give money, far better to give to specific candidates directly than to give to HRC or to the Democratic Party as a whole.

Ryan

Stephen, the Republicans “got involved” in DADT repeal–and killed it. Let’s not forget that. Democrats aren’t blameless, but the GOP gets the lion’s share. And while Ted Olsen is a Republican personally, he’s not a politican and not representing the party.

Grant

Jim – I wholeheartedly agree with this entire post. I continue to scratch my head at how HRC receives its funding. Who donates to them anymore? Is their main source of funding merchandise at their HRC stores? I just don’t get it.

TominDC

Call me cynical, but let’s step outside the situation and imagine looking at the US political system as an outsider.

Imagine if we got the handful of big things done – ENDA passed, DADT and DOMA repealed, and marriage equality. There’ll be calls to undo the legislative gains for the next few years, but after that, wouldn’t the GayTM be essentially shut down? Or at the very least, be significantly reduced?

The way I see it, the only financially sensible thing for the democratic party to do is to string us along for as long as they can to maximize their financial gains.

William Westwork

I regret Jim, that you waited to take this stand. But better late than never.

It’s pathetic that gays and lesbians have allowed themselves to become the poodles of the Democratic party. Prancing around the ring and striking poses whenever the Party needs a late Friday afternoon photo-op.

But Washington knows just how to perfume the air with enough of a whiff of scintillating power to keep uncritical and self-absorbed queer social climbers within their grasp.

And Jim, your stand is still a half-measure that doesn’t really get to the heart of the matter; rather than give ANY self-interested money to self-interested politicians, why not give money to food banks, shelters, or health programs.

Sadly, until homosexuals and their “leaders” are willing to be beaten-up or arrested repeatedly, like Ghandi or King, nothing will change. All laws will remain the same. Equal rights must be taken, because they are never freely given.

Would abandoning the “Leadership Conference/Cocktail Fundraiser as Panacea” mentality of queer culture make a dent in the politicians?

It damn sure would. The last thing the Democratic establishment expects gays and lesbians to do is the one thing it is hardest for any derided minority to do, and that is NOT to vote at all.

Maybe its time for us to do what we’re most afraid to do. Let Chaos reign until the political class realizes that our precious lives are not their political playthings.

Lindoro Almaviva

What do you mean the HRC is not part of the establishment. HRC made it perfectly clear they are part of the establishment by the way the behaved about DADT.

I think we should stop being naive about it and call it like it is. They stopped being an advocacy group a long time ago and they are not entrenched in the establishment and their main purpose is as a stepping stone for the precious few “gay appointments” each administration gives away as tokens.

John in the Bay Area

It seems that just when the Democrats get control of Congress, we (the gay community) get disenchanted, sitting by while the Republicans gain control. Then (too late), we whine about how awful things are, help Dems regain control, get disenchanted, etc., etc., and etc.

When will we learn? Stick with the Dems, just like the wingnuts stick with the GOP.

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